1. Field of the Disclosed Embodiments
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for implementing substantially real-time data communications and text messaging to provide interested parties with an ability to more effectively communicate with an operator of a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) during system operations.
2. Related Art
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as that term may be broadly interpreted, have existed in many different forms since the earliest days of flight. The earliest implementations involved the use of balloons, for example, for battle area reconnaissance and surveillance. This disclosure will use the term “Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS(s))” to refer to a particular class of UAVs that excludes, for example, missiles, unmanned rockets and weather and/or reconnaissance balloons. UASs are that broad class of UAVs, often commonly referred to as drones and/or remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) that are differentiated from other UAVs, such as those enumerated above, because the UAS platforms are capable of controlled flight from launch, through in-flight operations, to recovery and/or landing in a manner similar to a conventional piloted airplane or helicopter. The control schemes for these UASs may include real-time or near-real-time control of the flight profile by an operator at a remote control console in constant communication with a particular UAS. Alternatively, the control schemes for these UASs may include execution of preplanned and preprogrammed flight plans, which are autonomously executed by a particular UAS. Depending on a sophistication of the UAS, the control scheme may include an integration of both of the above-discussed control schemes such that a single “flight” may include periods of remote operator control and periods of preprogrammed control.
In early implementations, UASs tended to be small aerial vehicles with significant payload size, weight and power (SWAP) limitations. Based on very strict SWAP constraints, the capabilities of early UASs were limited and heavily dependent on technology miniaturization. These UASs saw early operational deployment for use by, for example, militaries worldwide to provide, among other missions, battle area reconnaissance and surveillance, and spoofing of adversary threat weapons systems when augmented with radar reflectors, for example, to act as decoys. The payload constraints were a significant limiting factor in the deployment of the earliest UASs for these and other military uses. Nonetheless, the popularity and efficacy of these systems on the battlefield were readily recognized. Missions could be undertaken that did not put aircrew in unnecessarily dangerous situations. Low cost added to the operational employment advantage for military-operated UASs in that these platforms were more readily expendable than other assets.
A desire to expand the role of UASs in support of military operations led to a requirement to develop UASs with increased payload capacity. Increased payload capacity had a number of advantages. First, some portion of an additional payload capacity could be dedicated to the carriage of additional fuel to extend ranges, and potential loiter times, for the systems in-flight. Second, some portion of an additional payload capacity could be dedicated to the carriage of a broader array of sensors to support expanded mission requirements, particularly sensors of all types that did not need to be specifically modified or miniaturized to be accommodated by the UAS. Third, some portion of an additional payload capacity could be dedicated to the carriage of ordnance carriage for delivery on, and use against, targets of varying descriptions.
Having proved their usefulness on the modern battlefield, employment of UAS platforms and the associated technology was studied for fielding in a broader array of operational scenarios far beyond military-only use. Many commercial entities and law enforcement agencies began developing noting operational requirements that could be filled through adaptive use of UAS technology. A focus of the development efforts for UAS platforms returned to exploring operation of smaller, more economical UAS platforms. Several manufacturers have worked with customer entities and agencies to develop, test and manufacture small UAS (sUAS) platforms, which are often lightweight, low cost aerial platforms that may be remotely piloted by an sUAS operator at a control and communication console in fairly close proximity to, often visual sight of, the sUAS in operation. To date, sUAS platforms have been limitedly deployed in support of law enforcement and other agency or individual surveillance requirements. sUAS platforms play an increasing role in many public service and public support missions, which include, but are not limited to, border surveillance, wildlife surveys, military training, weather monitoring, fire detection and monitoring, and myriad local law enforcement surveillance support missions.
A challenge to increasingly expanded employment of UAS platforms generally in many domestic, non-military scenarios, particularly in the United States, stems from platforms not having aircrew onboard that are able (1) to detect other close and/or conflicting aerial traffic and/or (2) to effect timely maneuvers to avoid collisions based on visual- or sensor-detected proximity to such conflicting aerial traffic.
As the role of UAS platforms expanded, an issue that had to be addressed was the growing potential for these platforms to be involved in serious safety-related incidents, including near and actual midair collisions between UAS platforms and other UAS platforms and/or conventional aircraft operating in close proximity to one another in both controlled and uncontrolled airspace environments.
Traffic detection and avoidance problems present themselves all too frequently in areas of heavy UAS deployment such as, for example, in military missions flown in forward theaters of operation. These problems were understood to present a significant drawback to expanding UAS deployment that was envisioned to fulfill growing military, law enforcement and other specific aerial surveillance and monitoring requirements in areas of otherwise operating aerial traffic. Expansion of UAS operations in the United States, for example, was initially inhibited by lack of a common understanding regarding what was required to safely and routinely operate a UAS in the National Airspace System (NAS). Challenges such as the lack of an onboard pilot to see and avoid other aircraft and the wide variation in unmanned aircraft missions and capabilities needed to be addressed in order to fully integrate UAS operations in the NAS and in other controlled and uncontrolled airspace worldwide. Employment scenarios had to be studied that included, but were not limited to, border patrol surveillance, rural aerial law enforcement surveillance, and myriad commercial uses such as, for example, pipeline monitoring, and deconfliction of these efforts from routine manned commercial, military and general aviation aircraft had to be established. Use of UAS platforms in law enforcement, homeland security and such commercial applications was evaluated as promising to prove fruitful if certain identified shortfalls in the UAS platforms that were available could be overcome.
Efforts were undertaken to, for example, incorporate and demonstrate an assured level of Collision Avoidance (CA) in the UAS platforms. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), for example, levied a requirement that UAS platforms must have a demonstrable CA capability with an Equivalent Level Of Safety (ELOS) to a manned aircraft before being certified to fly in the NAS. In order to meet this requirement, substantial investment was made to support research into UAS-based, i.e., “on aircraft,” CA technologies. A variety of sensors and/or sensor arrays were considered that were conventionally employed to detect, track and/or report information regarding manned aerial traffic, including myriad active and passive sensors to self-detect conflicting aerial traffic. It was recognized that those systems had been developed to augment, or to be augmented by, a specific aircrew's ability to see-and-avoid proximate conflicting aerial traffic. It was also recognized that extensive communication capabilities were incorporated into manned aircraft in order that traffic separation may be implemented by communication with ground-based and/or airborne radar or other sensor capable facilities.
While the above-described sensor and communication capabilities, as they were developed for manned aircraft, were understood to support man-in-the-loop CA, they were not originally considered as being effective in providing CA for UAS platforms. In fact, it was understood that there were distinct differences between capabilities that manage aerial traffic in the NAS providing “traffic separation” and those that may be employed for assuring CA. CA, as it was understood at the time that initial introduction of UAS platforms into the NAS was being considered, was ultimately left, in the case of manned aerial vehicles, to the aircrew operating those aerial vehicles. It is this distinction between traffic separation and CA that formed the basis levied by the FAA for the requirement for an ELOS in the employment of a UAS in the NAS.
It was recognized that, when the individual aircrew, or man-in-the-loop, was removed from the system in the transition from a manned aircraft to a UAS, the ability of the aircrew to see-and-avoid conflicting aerial traffic was removed. The see-and-avoid capability, therefore, was replaced in UAS platforms by a Sense-and-Avoid (SAA) capability. Such a capability was developed and made increasingly robust so as to be responsive enough to detect conflicting aerial traffic and analyze the potential for conflict. The analysis was required to be quick and accurate enough (1) to provide cues to a remote operator of the UAS to initiate evasive maneuvers, or (2) to provide command guidance to the UAS such that the UAS would autonomously initiate such evasive maneuvers in response to the command guidance.
These initial difficulties inhibiting broader UAS employment have been largely addressed such that the use and operation of conventional larger UAS platforms is well understood and regulated. These larger UAS platforms incorporate systems such as, for example: (1) UAS-based radar detection and transmission systems; (2) other UAS-based systems that can detect and fuse information from aircraft transponder and/or airframe-mounted traffic alert and collision avoidance systems (TCAS), particularly those including transponder mode S and/or automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) capabilities; (3) precise geo-location capabilities; (4) optical technologies via airframe mounted camera systems, to include low-light level and infra-red capabilities; and (5) acoustic and/or laser ranging systems, to support CA in further support of integration of the systems into the NAS. These are all viable options, which are employed in varying combinations to address SAA concerns and effective aerial traffic deconfliction for larger UAS platforms.
The same systems and rules do not translate, however, to enabling the use of widespread employment of commercially-available sUAS platforms. sUAS platforms, and the intricacies of their incorporation into a broader array of operational scenarios in the NAS, have been largely overlooked. As indicated above, sUAS platforms represent some amount of a regression to earlier UAS considerations that were never effectively addressed. Their smaller size, inherent lack of technical capabilities regarding communications, and limited payload, all of which are considerations in maintaining a low cost profile in procurement and operation, reintroduce difficulties in that any onboard-mounted system may not only stress the SWAP considerations for the UAS based on the carriage of the system alone, but may further stress the SWAP considerations by requiring additional system support components to perform rudimentary system sensor fusion, and data formatting and transmission capacity for even raw sensor data.